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The evaporative loss from global lakes (natural and artificial) is a critical component of the terrestrial water and energy balance. However, the evaporation volume of these water bodies—from the spatial distribution to the long-term trend—is as of yet unknown. Here, using satellite observations and modeling tools, we quantified the evaporation volume from 1.42 million global lakes from 1985 to 2018. We find that the long-term average lake evaporation is 1500 ± 150 km 3 year −1 and it has increased at a rate of 3.12 km 3 year −1 . The trend attributions include an increasing evaporation rate (58%), decreasing lake ice coverage (23%), and increasing lake surface area (19%). While only accounting for 5% of the global lake storage capacity, artificial lakes (i.e., reservoirs) contribute 16% to the evaporation volume. Our results underline the importance of using evaporation volume, rather than evaporation rate, as the primary index for assessing climatic impacts on lake systems. While the evaporative water loss from global lakes is invisible, the volume is substantial. In recent decades, lake evaporation volume has been significantly increasing due to enhanced evaporation rate, melting lake ice, and expansion of water extent.

Oral submucosal fibrosis (OSF) is a chronic, progressive and potentially malignant oral disorder with a high regional incidence and malignant rate. With the development of the disease, the normal oral function and social life of patients are seriously affected. This review mainly introduces the various pathogenic factors and mechanisms of OSF, the mechanism of malignant transformation into oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and the existing treatment methods and new therapeutic targets and drugs. This paper summarizes the key molecules in the pathogenic and malignant mechanism of OSF, the miRNAs and lncRNAs with abnormal changes, and the natural compounds with therapeutic effects, which provides new molecular targets and further research directions for the prevention and treatment of OSF.

Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) is a hematopoietic cytokine that is primarily secreted by monocytes or macrophages and has traditionally been recognized for its role in stimulating the proliferation and differentiation of neutrophils. Recent research has revealed the presence of G-CSF in non-hematopoietic cells such as vascular endothelial cells, placental cells, and trophoblast cells. This discovery has led to the belief that G-CSF plays a significant role in ensuring the success of pregnancy. In this review, we investigate and summarize the mechanisms of G-CSF in the reproductive system, specifically addressing its roles in endometrial repair at the maternal-fetal interface, trophoblast development, suppression of autoimmunity, ovulation, and its therapeutic effects in reproductive-related diseases. As an important cytokine in normal pregnancy, our study demonstrate that G-CSF could improve endometrial receptivity through multiple mechanisms: not only by inhibiting apoptosis, regulating cytokine expression, and mobilizing cells, but also by increasing the number of endometrial pinopodes and attenuating degeneration, as supported by recent studies. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive reference for future scientific research and clinical treatment endeavors.

Real-time online monitoring of track deformation during railway construction is crucial for ensuring the safe operation of trains. However, existing monitoring technologies struggle to effectively monitor both static and dynamic events, often resulting in high false alarm rates. This paper presents a monitoring technology for track deformation during railway construction based on dynamic Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (Dy-BOTDR), which effectively meets requirements in the monitoring of both static and dynamic events of track deformation. Dy-BOTDR can provide a two-dimensional spatial–temporal distribution map of track strain changes to characterize various events for better monitoring accuracy and lower false alarm rates.

Fire is an integral part of Earth's system that links regional and global biogeochemical cycles, human activities, and ecosystems. Global estimates for biomass burning indicate that Africa is responsible for ~70% of global burned area and ~50% of fire-related carbon emissions. Previous studies have documented an overall decline in burned area in the African continent, but changes in fire patterns, such as the frequency and size of different fire categories, have not been assessed. In this study, long-term fire trends were investigated using the latest burned area data from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Global Fire Emission Database (GFED4s) over Central Africa (10°E-40°E, 15°N-15°S). A 3D (latitude, longitude, time) connected-component labeling algorithm was applied to identify individual fires and their sizes. The results show a decline in burned area by 2.7-3.2 Mha yr−1 (~1.3% yr−1) for the period 2003-2017, particularly in northern Central Africa. This decline was attributed to significant decreases in both fire frequency and size, particularly for large fires (>100 ha) which contribute to ~90% of the total burned area. Burned area declined in tropical savannas and grasslands but increased at the edges of the Congolese rainforest. A random forest regression model was applied to quantify the influences of climatic conditions, fuel availability, and agricultural activity on burned area changes. Overall, suppressed fuel, increased dry season length, and decreased rainfall contributed to significant declines in burned area in savannas and grasslands. At the edges of the southern Congolese rainforest, suppressed rainfall and warmer temperature were responsible for the increased burned area.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most aggressive and lethal cancers with a complex pathogenesis, there is an urgent need to find new drug therapeutic targets. This study highlights the important role of the NR3C2-SIRT1 signaling axis in the metastasis mechanism of CRC. Our findings revealed that the expression of NR3C2 in CRC tissues was lower than that in adjacent non-cancerous tissues, and was negatively correlated with N stage by bioanalysis, IHC, western blot and qRT-PCR. NR3C2 overexpression / knockdown can significantly inhibit / promote the migration and invasion of CRC cells, at the same time inhibit / promote EMT. Mechanically, the regulatory molecule SIRT1 was identified by RNA-seq, bioinformatics analysis, western blot and ChIP. SIRT1 was also involved in the metastasis process of CRC, and NR3C2 was found to regulate the expression of LC3B and SQSTM1/p62 in a SIRT1-dependent manner. Therefore, NR3C2 forms a signaling axis with SIRT1, which can directly promote autophagy and inhibit EMT process in vivo and in vitro. Collectively, our findings suggest that NR3C2 - SIRT1 signal axis promote autophagy and inhibit EMT, ultimately inhibits lung metastasis of CRC.

Understanding the rainfall climatology and variability over Central Equatorial Africa (CEA) has largely been hampered by the lack of adequate in situ observations and meteorological stations for the last three decades. Large differences and uncertainties among several observational and reanalysis data sets and various climate model simulations present another big challenge. This study comprehensively assesses the currently widely used reanalysis products based on quality-controlled radiosonde observations and a new gauge-based rainfall data set, NIC131, in order to identify the “best” reanalysis products available over CEA. Among the seven reanalysis data sets (i.e., 20CR, CFSR, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA2, NCEP-1 and NCEP-2), MERRA2 is closest to NIC131 in reproducing the mean climatology and interannual variability and has the smallest biases and root-mean-square error (RMSE) in describing the observed wind fields in the lower- and middle-troposphere, and the two NCEP reanalyses can better capture geopotential height fields than the other reanalyses. Overall, the reanalyses capture the major features of the rainfall seasonal cycle and the seasonal evolution in the reference data but demonstrate an evident spread of spatiotemporal characteristics. By examining the moisture transport, we find that the differences in the lower- and middle-tropospheric circulation can reasonably explain the differences in the rainfall climatology among the reanalyses. Considering the large differences in horizontal and vertical wind fields among the seven reanalyses, we need to use the best reanalysis wind and moisture fields to explain the observed rainfall and associated circulation changes over CEA.

We aim to investigate the roles and mechanisms of NR3C2 in colorectal cancer (CRC). The expression of NR3C2 in CRC tumours and paired paracancerous tissues of 71 CRC patients and five CRC cell lines was detected by western blotting, immunohistochemistry and real‐time reverse‐transcription PCR. Moreover, NR3C2 was overexpressed or knocked down in CRC cells by lentiviral vector transfection. The proliferation of cells was measured by MTT, colony formation assay and flow cytometry. Glucose metabolism was assessed by detecting lactate production, glucose consumption and ATP production. Western blotting and real‐time reverse‐transcription PCR were used to detect the expression of AMPK, LDHA and HK2. The expression of NR3C2 was significantly decreased in CRC tumours compared to paracancerous tissues, which was correlated with distant metastasis, poor prognosis and advanced stages of CRC patients. Overexpressing NR3C2 suppressed the proliferation and promoted the G2/M cell cycle arrest of CRC cells. Furthermore, NR3C2 inhibited glucose metabolism by decreasing the expression of HK2 and LDHA. The phosphorylation of AMPK was also downregulated in CRC cells overexpressing NR3C2. This study demonstrated that NR3C2 inhibited the proliferation of CRC by inhibiting glucose metabolism and phosphorylation of AMPK which may serve as a therapeutic target for CRC.

Understanding land-surface biophysical feedbacks to the atmosphere is needed if we are to simulate regional climate accurately. In the Arctic, previous studies have shown that enhanced vegetation growth decreases albedo and amplifies warming. In contrast, on the Tibetan Plateau, a statistical model based on in situ observations and decomposition of the surface energy budget suggests that increased vegetation activity may attenuate daytime warming by enhancing evapotranspiration (ET), a cooling process. A regional climate model also simulates daytime cooling when prescribed with increased vegetation activity, but with a magnitude smaller than observed, likely because this model simulates weaker ET enhancement in response to increased vegetation growth. In the Arctic, climate warming enhances vegetation activity by extending the length of the growing season and intensifying maximum rates of productivity. In turn, increased vegetation productivity reduces albedo, which causes a positive feedback on temperature. Over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), regional vegetation greening has also been observed in response to recent warming. Here, we show that in contrast to arctic regions, increased growing season vegetation activity over the TP may have attenuated surface warming. This negative feedback on growing season vegetation temperature is attributed to enhanced evapotranspiration (ET). The extra energy available at the surface, which results from lower albedo, is efficiently dissipated by evaporative cooling. The net effect is a decrease in daily maximum temperature and the diurnal temperature range, which is supported by statistical analyses of in situ observations and by decomposition of the surface energy budget. A daytime cooling effect from increased vegetation activity is also modeled from a set of regional weather research and forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model simulations, but with a magnitude smaller than observed, likely because the WRF model simulates a weaker ET enhancement. Our results suggest that actions to restore native grasslands in degraded areas, roughly one-third of the plateau, will both facilitate a sustainable ecological development in this region and have local climate cobenefits. More accurate simulations of the biophysical coupling between the land surface and the atmosphere are needed to help understand regional climate change over the TP, and possible larger scale feedbacks between climate in the TP and the Asian monsoon system.

Recent satellite and in-situ measurements show that forests can influence regional and global cloud cover through biophysical processes. However, forest’s possible local and non-local impacts on clouds remain unclear. By analyzing the model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, here we show that deforestation-induced cloud cover changes have a strong latitudinal dependence, with decreased cloudiness in the tropics but increased cloudiness in the temperate and boreal regions. We further disentangle the local and non-local effects in influencing the cloudiness changes in model simulations. Results show that deforestation leads to a local cloud reduction in the tropics and a non-local cloud enhancement in the temperate and boreal regions. We demonstrate that the relationship between changes in cloud cover and deforestation would be misinterpreted without considering the non-local signals. Furthermore, our modeling results are inconsistent with recent observational studies, with enhanced clouds in model simulations but reduced clouds in observations in the temperate and boreal regions. Further efforts to explore the non-local effect and to reduce the model uncertainty could help advance our understanding of the biophysical effects of deforestation.